Spring Cleaning Your Brand’s Social Channels

6 Easy Tips to Refresh Your Online Presence

The end of the year is typically when we take a look back on our communications efforts and make plans for the year ahead. But when it comes to social media strategy, those plans should not be something that is set once and forgotten. When was the last time you took a look at who you’re engaging with and how your channels are set up?

Spring is in the air and there is no better time than now, at the end of the first quarter, to clean up your brand’s social media presence. Here are six easy steps you can take to refresh your social media accounts.

When you first set up your brand’s social media strategy, you probably did an analysis of key online influencers in your market. When was the last time you updated that research?

Take a look at who you are following on each of your platforms, and find new pages and accounts to follow. Make a commitment to like, share and comment on others’ relevant posts. Engagement continues to be an important part of a social media strategy. In fact, in a January 2017 Sprout Social poll of 1,000 U.S. internet users, 62 percent of respondents said they are likely or somewhat likely to purchase a product from a brand they follow on social media. When a customer has a positive interaction with a brand, their willingness to purchase increased by 14 percent.

2. Gather new research on your industry’s social landscape.

It’s also likely the competitive landscape has changed since the last time you conducted a review. Find out who has recently created an account on your platforms. What campaigns are they running? What topics are they posting about, and which are getting traction?

Use your findings to inform your strategy and content. If your audience segmentation has changed, or your audience has moved to a different platform, make sure you are on the right channels.

Form a plan to keep an eye on what’s trending so your content uses the best hashtags and latest technologies – today it may be Facebook Live, tomorrow it will be something else.

3. Give your evergreen content new life.

Review your posts from the last year or so. Which were the most popular? Is there a way to update them with the most current information and re-share across your platforms? A popular tweet can be expanded on for LinkedIn or a popular infographic from last year can be updated with this year’s statistics and shared as a new post.

Cross-referencing your platforms is not only important for integration and consistency, but can also save you time in creating content when you identify resources from one channel that haven’t yet been used on another.

4. Update your image bank.

When was the last time you changed your cover or profile photo? Consider refreshing it to match the season or a campaign. And, go through the bank of images you pull from when posting pictures. Do they match the look and feel of your website and marketing materials, or your latest advertising campaign?

If you’re often using stock photos, consider working with your creative team or using an online design tool like Canva to personalize them by adding a quote, turning them into a meme or adding brand identifiers.

5. Review how you are describing your brand.

Does the ‘about’ section on each of your channels reflect your latest messaging? Double check you have accurate contact information, including links. Consider linking to your latest campaign’s landing page on the appropriate channels, but make sure to check back and update the link when the campaign is complete.

6. Watch your videos.

Are videos you posted two years ago still accurate? Pay careful attention to each video’s call to action, and make sure it still aligns with brand messaging. Are older videos continuing to get clicks? Consider promoting older, but still relevant videos buried in a YouTube playlist on other channels.